Tuesday, August 31, 2010

This dude Steven Hertzberg was Director of the Election Science Institute. He was heavily involved in the whitewashing of problems with electronic voting machines. Robert Hertzberg, I believe his brother, was one of the first politicians to sponsor a bill for the funding of such machines. They were to be the answer to the 2000 fiasco that took place in Florida. What most people don't know is that Steven was also a top dog blogger for a nutjob website run by an obvious internet fake named Fintan Dunne.

Days ago, I dared donkeytale to say things to my face I didn't think he'd have the guts to. He responded with some wisdom. That is an overused cliche found on the blogosphere, that many write things they would never say in person. There is some truth to that, but my use of the cliche momentarily turned me into a stooge of a keyboard commando tough guy. Donkeytale said he'd meet me for a duel. That was a good one, very funny.

Steven was posting as Navari at a disinfo dump named Break for News. At the peak of his bravado, he was turning the joint into a cult. He co-opted a Donald Rumsfeld phrase and turned it into a call for Full Spectrum Liberty. From his vanity website, "Full Spectrum Liberty: A global collaboration to develop a system of liberty so pervasive, so ingrained into the psyche of each individual, that no government, commercial entity or other person may compromise it."

For the whole scoop on this guy, you can check out this thread. For now, check out his meltdown. Fintan Dunne deleted it, but I saved it while it was still accessible through google cache.

Monday, August 30, 2010

I'm glad it turned out Bob didn't delete TLNL's post. The drama that occurred after that post ended up in the spam bin can be figured out by checking out the two previous entries.

Unfortunately, I threw down a card, and I am of the belief that a card shown is a card played. That Bob has not been fostering dissension on this blog is good news. Nonetheless, as a result of the previous confusion, something else has come to light. I'll try to be gentle, but it doesn't look good for Bob.

Bob once told me he used to post at Rigorous Intuition. I like what Bob has added to DFQ2, in regards to his insights on RI and the satanic panic. I innocently wanted to check out what he had written there. He wouldn't tell me who he was. Now I understand why.

Bob was posting at RI as [redacted].

I don't really have many problems with his take on the Johnny Gosch story. I do think on occasion he has made some questionable comments. This is a basic disclaimer just in case he has written anything I don't want to be associated with. For the purposes of this entry, I'm not going there. I do find it very strange how he has been blogging alongside the King of all "Theresa Duncan ghost" wankers. I'm not going to delve much into that, just a bit at the end of this diary.

My problem with Bob revolves around his historic support of Big Tobacco. Perhaps he did that as a useful idiot. However, I find it tough to believe he wasn't being paid as an astroturfer to attack anti-smoking laws. The sheer volume of his posts on that topic, imho, went far beyond any normal amount. Those posts across the internet dwarfed even the production generated by the Theresa Duncan Ghost Fan Club. And this schtick actually had something to do with a real issue and not some fiction revolving around the concept of alternative reality games.

It also appears that Bob was employing the use of sock puppets, though it's always dodgy to try to prove that, unless we're talking about Jason Leopold.

I'll also touch briefly on Bob having made me look like a chump on one of his other blogs.

Bob used to run a blogspot called Surreality Times. He claimed its membership consisted of three people who shared the same login. One of those persons was [redacted]. Let's get the sock puppet thing out of the way. From the main RI thread he posted on, two separate yet similar copy and pastes were added made by himself and [redacted] on other websites. The original links are not working or I'd provide them, but Bob didn't dispute it anyway. Here are those copy and pastes along with his explanation followed by another post concerning an old e-zine they worked on. That one was deleted just like Surreality Times. I don't like it when things get white-walled. This isn't 100% proof they are the same person, but if you parse and compare the sentences, they sound amazingly similar. (Excerpts from the RI thread)

[redacted]

Bob Roberts? Bob?

People could knock themselves silly searching for entries written by [redacted]. I'm not going to do that here. My mind is already spinning over this thing. I'll mention a few examples. Folks are free to google site:surrealitytimes.blogspot.com and then hit the caches. Maybe Bob can explain why he deleted the blog. Maybe he can explain why he supported and voted for a Progressive Conservative named Stelmach. That doesn't sound very lefty of him.

This guy or guys were so prolific at supporting Big Tobacco, they were cited in a government report.

Robin came out with something called The Gaison Hypothesis. He argued that tax increases on tobacco would lead to an increase in teen smoking. That's the ticket.

These guys were calling second-hand smoke a hoax. They were saying tax increases would cause hunger. Last night I skimmed through many an entry of Roy Harrold's that would start out discussing one thing but eventually turn into a pro-Tobacco Industry rant. Roy liked to talk a lot about public policy. He sounded exactly like a political operative would. It thus turned out to be no surprise to find him lauding Michael Crichton while attacking global warming activists. It was no surprise to see him besmirching efforts to encourage healthier eating. According to Robin, uhm, Roy, er Bob, people should have the right to smoke two packs a day and eat a bag of Doritos for dinner. Sure, in theory he or they are correct, but anyone can do the searches I did and see that the Thou Dost Protest Too Much hypothesis was in full motion. One needs to check this out for themselves to see how prolific Roy was in supporting Big Tobacco. For someone who alleges to be a progressive activist, he sure picked a strange hobby horse to devote most of his energy to.

Here's a link that's kind of off-topic to the smoking thingie, but in light of my sincere effort to be gentle with this expose, it will provide some much needed entertainment. It's easy for anyone to confirm what I've written concerning Roy Harrold and his outrageous output of support over the years for Big Tobacco. Just hit the search engines. Bob shows up on the fourth post and turns this thread upside down and inside out. This one deserves to be enshrined in the Internet Hall of Fame for meltdowns.

I guess this last bit isn't exactly a Brutus stabbing Caesar moment. Perhaps I'm the one who is doing the betrayal. I admit it. This is deja vu with what happened with myself and The Cold Spy. It turned out that dude was associating with neonazis and various other forms of Holocaust deniers. Bob working for Big Tobacco, even if by chance he did so as a useful idiot, which I don't think, is the same kind of thing that's going to get me to scream, "Run for the hills. It's a monster troll."

Bob revealed to me a while back that he had been the author of a piece juxtaposing myself with the Theresa Duncan fixated Dreamsend nutjob. Bob's the author of a website called The Foil Beneath My Hat. Dreamsend is another person who has no qualms about deleting whole websites. Maybe that's why Bob likes him. I don't know what the attraction is. DE was going by the name BF Kade which spells out as the Blogger Formerly Known As Dreamsend. Bob has deleted the entry. However, I had copied and pasted it before that at my other forum well before we ever met.

The Foil Beneath My Hat: Dangerously Close To The Truth

Two Sites Containing Dangerous Truths:

The first site has Agents posting & exposing many truths on it:
http://allaircraftarenotinvolved.freeforums.org/the-last-name-left-sounds-like-carmenjonze-t290.html

Bob told me he didn't mean anything bad about the word agent, that his use of the word agent was positive. He referred me to his first entry. You see, Foil Beneath My Hat is an attempt at satire. It makes fun of tinfoilers. I bought his explanation that calling me an agent was a compliment. However, now that I am taking a closer look at Bob, I can see that he was lumping me in with "tinfoil-hat lunatics."

On the other hand, he put Dreamsend in a good light.

The next site is not run by Agents, nor is it run by New World Order Illuminati disinformation propagandists. This site is run by an Other -a relaxed, unpretentious seeker who comes dangerously close to exposing The Real Truth:

http://kadescorner.blogspot.com/

Take a look at the December 20, 2008 entry - "Andy vs The Octopus". Kade raises questions about deceased DU poster & election fraud activist Andy Stephenson. Kade talks about Stephenson's claim to be in contact with (recently convicted child pornographer) Delmart Vreeland. Kade wonders how/why Stephenson became a public advocate of the fraudulent Gannon=Gosch "theory", when that status would surely detract or distract from his alleged primary mission of exposing election fraud and advocating Democratic Reforms.

Take a look at the December 29, 2008 entry - "Franklin Uncovered". Again, Kade puzzles over how/why journalist Nick Bryant - who promised to expose the real truth about the Franklin Coverup in a new book on the subject (until the presales fell flat at 300 out of the required 3000) - would "choose" a tiny conspiracy obsessed publisher like Trine Day.

Now take a look at March 9, 2009 entry - "Welcome to the board, Eve". Kade says: "I see there is some confusion about my last post. I think the confusion stems from a continued failure to realize what the Rigorous Intuition site is all about".

What Kade doesn't say, is that Rigorous Intuition site owner Jeff Wells was one of the people who invented the Gannon=Gosch "theory" (posting pseudonomously on Democratic Underground), which revived flagging interest in the "Franklin Coverup", and that Jeff Wells had his own oblique connection to Delmart Vreeland:

"For Toronto blogger Jeff Wells, the collapse of the twin towers was a wake-up call. Wells, a satirist for Frank magazine, was contacted by a lawyer friend following the attacks. The friend was representing a man named Delmart Vreeland who had been arrested in Toronto for alleged credit card fraud. While in jail, Vreeland not only claimed that he worked for the U.S. Naval Intelligence, he also warned authorities about the forthcoming attacks. In August 2001, with his lawyer and prison officials present, he wrote his prediction in a letter, which was then sealed. It wasn’t opened again until Sept. 14 — and on the list of possible targets, he had included the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. "Hearing the story from my friend opened up my eyes a bit," says Wells, who always had an interest in politics. "So that started it."Whoever/whatever Kade is, they are dangerously close to unravelling "the whole ball of wax" and if that happens there may have to be another temporal shift to wipe The Truth out of everyone's minds once again.

B. F. Kade...remember Icarus.
End of transmission.

Now this is what I don't get. Was Bob making it seem Dreamsend as BFKade was presenting the last bit as his own writing, or did he copy and paste something Dreamsend presented as his own? There's no way to know, because Dreamsend usually deletes his blogging at some point, and he did so with the BFKade username.

The last bit was actually written by a student journalist named Jessica Lockhart. I thought maybe she was BFKade. I emailed her and found out her work had been lifted without citation, i.e. plagiarised.

Since the Kades Korner blog is long gone, there's no way to know what really happened here, whether Bob made a mistake with lifting the material or DE did.

I always found it a bit odd how Bob continued to support DE. If it wasn't for DE, the insane house troll wouldn't have known my first name. DE has talked somewhat of how insidious ARG people trapped him in some game. I don't buy that one. He's allowed that house troll to continue posting at his own blog. He got involved with it last year in regards to some more Theresa Duncan centered bullshit. I can't believe how anyone can still be going on about easily debunked nonsense like that. Theresa Duncan killed herself. She suffered from paranoid delusions. If anyone was a "tin-foil hat lunatic," it was her.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I could have let the two trolls continue posting at DFQ2, but they were ruining this blog. One is certifiably cuckoo bananas. The other is a historic troll who emerged out of the Daily Kos School for Fake Lefties. Here's a quote from the MLW thread, in which Donkeytale (Joseph KKK) was promoting sexual relations between adults and minors to go with his advocating 13 year old boys sexually experimenting with one another.

One hopes that global capitalism will become the ultimate replacement for war. War by other means, so to speak.

Here's a quote he made on this blog a while back, one in which he exposed himself as being the ultimate waste of time. I was plugging The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. I mentioned Herbert Marcuse, as I also had on this diary.

Socrates in many ways embodies eternal adolescence. The Left of the Frankfurt School?

Marcuse taught school in Calif back in the day. He taught Angela Davis I believe. Otherwise, he was barely a blip on the leftist radar screen.

He was considered a Marxist. I'm also a Marxist as well as a Freudian. Check out Marx. He held nothing but scathing contempt for leftist idealism. Did that mean he wasnt a leftist?

The Left, as Socrates depicts it, is simply a dead religion. It worships dead Gods at the altar of idealism which provides nothing for nobody except an obnoxious sense of self righteousness. Change? What change?

The Left's condescending self righteousness is why it shrinks instead of grows in times when it should grow: like today with the spreading crisis of capitalism in the west.

Can people see how idiotic he can be? Marcuse combined Marx and Freud for his groundbreaking Eros and Civilization. Marcuse is also well known for his epic takedown of the Military Industrial Complex with One-Dimensional Man. But to donkeytale, "[Marcuse] was barely a blip on the leftist radar screen." And to repeat, also according to donkeytale, "One hopes that global capitalism will become the ultimate replacement for war." Basically, donkeytale is just another version of right woos left. I also figure donkeytale was for capitalism, before he was against it, based on those two polar comments.

I'm done with that fool. Nothing he posts ever again will remain on this blog. Bob thought he was doing me a favor with his latest entry by taking care of the donkeytale mess. Perhaps he will eventually do that, but unless he addresses the many perverted comments made at My Left Wing, Bob's effort was more akin to the feeding of a troll. Of course I'm perhaps doing the same thing right now. I just wish to get this out of my system. Soon enough this entry will pick up steam on other matters, those I hope good readers will appreciate and contribute to with some civil comments. However, troll posts will never again be allowed. If this makes me a hypocrite, because I despise censorship at big blogs, then so be it. This is a small place. If trolls were allowed to remain as regulars, their presence would truly turn DFQ2 into a scum pond.

There's simply no way to make comparisons between my censorship of trolls with what is done at big places like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. It's now time to move on.

Something Stinks About America

Those were the Hollywood Ten. They were only the tip of the iceberg of folks blacklisted for being suspected communists. One of the others was playwright Lillian Hellman. Yesterday I watched one of her brilliant plays turned into a movie called The Children's Hour. There are going to be some spoilers, so before reading further, one might want to watch the movie here.

Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine inThe Children's Hour

Hellman tried to downplay the story's theme having been centered around lesbianism. She claimed it was more about how big lies can ruin lives. What I found most fascinating about the picture is how for most of it, the flick seemed to condone homophobia. The point seemed to be that if the big lie were true, that the characters played by Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn were indeed lesbian lovers, then it was moral for the students to be withdrawn and their school ruined. Or maybe it was merely showing how rampant homophobia was in the early 60's. This 1961 movie would now be considered dated. I think the better description is that it has historical context.

My bet is that Hellman downplayed the lesbian theme as being integral, because the concept of lies ruining lives would get people thinking of the horrific influence the HUAC had on Hollywood's development. The play was first written in 1934. I have found a study guide (pdf) written by Craig Joseph, Dramaturg which gives most of the backstory.

In previous entries on a number of occasions I have mentioned the Hays Code. The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, its formal name, wasn't truly enforced until 1934. As PBS.org explains,

...In 1934, Joe Breen, a strict Catholic moralist from Philadelphia, was hired to run Hollywood's Production Code Administration, set up to enforce the Code. The PCA had the authority to review all movies and demand script changes. Any theater that ran a film without the PCA seal of approval would be fined $25,000. The Code had power at last. "The vulgar, the cheap, and the tawdry is out. There is no room on the screen at any time for pictures which offend against common decency. And these the industry will not allow," pledged Breen.

Moviemakers and scriptwriters acquiesced. They accepted the Code as the rule by which they had to work and created films that met Breen's standards. Some actors survived; others were not so fortunate. Under the watchful eye of Breen and the PCA, Jean Harlow learned to play the all-American, girl-next-door and her career flourished. Others, like Mae West, were ruined in part because sexual innuendo and the double-entendre -- her trademarks -- were forbidden by the Code. Hollywood Censored shows reel-to-reel evidence of Breen's influence. The films released after July 1934 were radically different from those that had come before. "It's the difference between Mae West and Shirley Temple," explains film historian Thomas Doherty in the film.

The Production Code's days were numbered in 1952 when movies were finally granted free speech protection under the First Amendment. The motion picture industry officially abandoned the Code in 1968 and soon replaced it with the system of age-based ratings that still exist today....

multi-talented actress, singer, and writer Mae West

Folks are encouraged to check out the pdf study guide linked to above for The Children's Hour. They will see that Hellman's play was based on a true story from Edinburgh, Scotland in 1810. They will also read of how a 1926 play The Captive, one that also included lesbian themes, was shut down by police with the main actresses arrested.

Despite Hellman not using the word lesbian, the play was banned in various cities such as Chicago, Boston, and London.

The author of the study guide, Craig Joseph, Dramaturg, came up with an interesting chart concerning the four times Hellman's play was produced. I'll put those up here. Those interested in more info, please go to the pdf. You won't be disappointed.

I'm going to wrap this up by posting pictures of a few of the people whose careers were damaged and a few of the jerks who were on the wrong side of this specific slice of American History. The biggest lie of them all is that America is a democratic society with a glorious history. One can read Howard Zinn and get the real scoop on our past. Apparently we continue to ignore the mistakes of the past by repeating them. Capitalism continues to reign. America continues to be a cultural wasteland. Nonetheless, there are pockets of awareness, and some people are quite aware of what social reality truly is.

Some Blacklisted VictimsPlaywright Lillian Hellman

Actress Kim Hunter

Actor Edward G. Robinson

Actress Gale Sondergaard

Influential Writer Dalton Trumbo; photo courtesy The Trumbo Family

Some Cretins On This Specific Wrong Side Of HistoryFormer President Ronald Reagan

Sunday, August 22, 2010

We are all aware that the primary rationalization for homophobic efforts in Western countries, to exclude sexual minorities from full and open participation in all aspects of community, to exclude sexual minorities from the full protection of human rights legislation, is the idea that Gay men are inherently oriented toward abusing minors. All Progressive persons also know, or should know, that this bigoted perception of an inherent relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia is false. The truth about this, frequently deliberate, misconception can be found here:

Nevertheless, this misconception persists and is gleefully perpetuated by many "conservative" propagandists. A clear example of how this misconception is currently being exploited and promoted by such persons can be found here:

I'm a Gay man and I'm going to confront this bigoted misconception, here in this posting, but not the way you are used to seeing this done - for example on the Religious Tolerance site. This is not going to be another regurgitation of GBLT 101 counter-propaganda. I'm going to speak Truth, here. Some of this truth may be disturbing for Progressive readers, but it has to be brought forward - and by Gay men themselves - so that the underlying realities can be understood and addressed, and the full enjoyment of our human rights can be enabled.

I'll begin by cleaning house. I was horrified by Socrates' disclosure that a former member of this Blog had posted rationalizations for sexual relationships between teens and adults, elsewhere on the 'net. Rationalizations for sexual relationships between teens and adults are inevitably built on delusions and false premises, because such relationships are inherently abusive - as I will demonstrate. Such rationalizations will inevitably be interpreted as an endorsement of child abuse - whether their author intended that or not.

Homophobes love to exploit the existence of such rationalizations in Gay literature. From the 'traditionalvalues' site linked above:"Eberstadt cites the Village Voice, which states that "Gay fiction is rich with idyllic accounts of 'intergenerational relationships,' as such affairs are respectfully called these days."

They are able to exploit this, because it is a fact. It is reality, they are not inventing fraudulent documentation ala The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is also a fact, that some Gay men including some historic leaders in Gay advocacy movements, internalized 'romanticized' rationalizations about sexual relationships between teens and adults, to protect themselves from the ugly truth of their own victimization, and made the tragic mistake of publicly proclaiming these defensive delusions. It's ok for Gay men to admit this and discuss it publicly, however, because a fully informed understanding of how & why Gay men historically developed such rationalizations powerfully supports the need for complete social normalization of the GLBT community.

Sexual relationships between teens and adults are inherently abusive

I'm not going to reproduce quotes from any of the delusional arguments in favor of such relationships, (and there are many), that can be found on the'net. This is not going to turn into intellectualized porn. If you were hoping to find that here, kindly f*ck-off and go away.There are some recurrent themes in rationalizations for such relationships, that I will now confront and debunk.

"I had sexual relationships with adults when I was a young teen. I wasn't exploited, because I sought and initiated these encounters. Therefore, it's ok for adults to have sex with boys who 'come on to them' "

Wrong. I'ts quite natural for adolescents to be attracted to adult physiques and to fantasize having sex with mature persons. On top of this, adult persons have many things that teens crave and aspire to sharing in; greater autonomy, their own vehicles & dwellings, wealth, status, power, etc. Young teens may fantasize a relationship with an adult wherein they would be treated as an equal, as an adult, and experience sexual and material fulfillment. They might make the mistake of seeking such a relationship, because they cannot foresee the potential for tragic consequences.

But you, as an adult, can foresee the harm that could befall them and - as the more mature person - it is your responsibility to protect the younger person, by turning them down and redirecting them to their peers.

They cannot imagine contracting sexually transmitted diseases and the suffering that might cause them, but you can. They cannot foresee that you will only treat them as an equal when you are alone together, that your friends and family will not accept them as an adult and when you are around those person you will treat them like "a kid" - because that's what they are. They cannot foresee the emotional devastation this reality will cause them, but you can.

They lack the life experience to foresee that they will have to hide the true nature of your relationship from everyone else in their lives, so that you don't go to prison, and that hiding your true self from everyone around you necessarily poisons your soul.

An emotionally disturbed Gay man might be able to rationalize away other aspects of such a relationship that are inherently abusive - such as your superior social, psychological and financial power in the relationship - but there is no way to escape the reality that engaging in a sexual relationship with a legal minor will force that person to hide a part of themselves and their life experience from everyone else in their lives. That will necessarily cause them harm, it will f*ck them up just as surely as the social necessity for hiding your true self, that you have experienced at one time or another in your own life, f*cked you up. They will experience trauma, as a result of your relationship with them, which makes such a relationship inherently abusive.

"I'm a Gay man who had relationships with adults when I was a teen, and so did several of my friends, but we weren't traumatized by those experiences"

BULLSHIT. The well documented prevalence of drug abuse, alcoholism, psychological disorders, self-destructive behaviours and suicide in our community is completely unrelated to the high rates of sexual exploitation by older persons that Gay men have historically reported experiencing in their youth? Can we please stop lying to ourselves about this?

Homophobic persecution forced Gay men into unhealthy behaviours

The prevalence of romanticized, rationalized, "idyllic accounts of 'intergenerational relationships,' in Gay literature is not evidence of an inherent relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia. It is, in reality, evidence that historic homophic repression and persecution of homosexuality in our culture had forced Gay youth into inappropriate relationships and at the same time facilitated the exploitation of Gay youth by sexual predators.

My first encounter with a Gay community organization happened when I was 20 - way back in the late 1970's. The men that I met through this group could overwhelmingly be divided into three categories, with respect to their initial "coming out" as a Gay person and subsequent involvement with whatever homosexual underground existed where they were living at the time. (None of us had "grown up" with an open, public, Gay support group operating in our community).

Some of these men claimed that they had "always been out", but only with respect to their sexual behaviour - they hadn't always been open & public about their orientation with their families, schoolmates or co-workers. Guys with this background often talked about having been sexually precocious from a young age, engaging in mutual seduction with their agemates but also "seducing" older boys and later - adult men, that they found attractive. These tales almost always had a romanticized interpretation of their exploitation by older boys or men, these were "love affairs" in their memory. Some of these "lovers" were described as having been adonises of heterosexuality, athletic and macho teens or men who were nevertheless seduced by the "charms" of a young Gay boy that they would end up loving more passionately than any girl or woman they had ever known. I'm not saying that this kind of scenario is impossible, or that every guy claiming such a history was deliberately misrepresenting the nature of these relationships, but...As I got to know these men better and developed friendships with several of them, less romantic details came up. Some had a history of teenaged prostitution and drug addiction, and their adult "lovers" turned out to be romanticized Johns. Some admitted to having been forcibly raped or even gang-raped by their teenage "lover's" friends or schoolmates/teammates. Despite the romantic spin they put on their experiences, it was apparent that being openly attracted to other males as a child/youth, that being known - just within neighborhood gossip - as "that queer kid", had made them easy prey for a certain class of sexual predator. Being "queer" meant that they were somehow inherently morally corrupt and therefore as "legitimate" a target for callous male lust as any "whore" would be.

Some other men in the group described having their first homosexual romances when they were in their teens. For most of these, their initial partner was a college-aged or older man that they knew through family or other social networks, who was known or rumored to be "queer". Men with this background sometimes talked about having sexual or romantic attractions to their peers, as a youth, but never revealing or acting on those feelings for fear that doing so would be at best complete social suicide and just as likely to result in the serious, routine beatings and/or rapes that other boys suspected of being "queers" had been subjected to. For these men, their initial partner was "safe" enough to risk revealing their homosexual attractions with. Their partner was old enough and secure enough to survive being "known", at least within their own circles, as having homosexual inclinations - whereas their teenaged peers would all be just as paranoid about "letting their secret slip" even if any of them had been gay-identified at that point in their lives. These men had no hope for a peer partner, if they were to find an outlet for their sexual and romantic expression it would necessarily have to be with an older male. If they were lucky, their older partner might actually be a well-adjusted gay man who could and would welcome them into a thriving gay underground through which they might find more appropriate partners closer to their own age. That is the romantic rationalization spin often placed on this life history, they had a fleeting affair with their older partner which affirmed their gay identity and gave them entry to "the community", so it was a positive relationship and not an abusive one. But this same scenario is also a predator's dream - young, naive boys desperately seeking out someone who is "like them", someone who will accept or even love them for the person they really are. I have to wonder, how many of the predatory Priests working in church youth groups or boarding schools specialized in spotting and exploiting exactly this type of gay youth? How many experiences of meeting an older person who callously exploited the boy and then dumped him out of their lives, did these Gay youths have to expose themselves to before they found the one sincere man who became the romanticized lover of their memory?

The third 'category' of men in our group were those who had remained completely virginal and closeted - with respect to their homosexual inclinations - until well into their 20's, 30's, or 40's. Deeply repressed and closeted gay men, most of these guys were still "living the lie" outside of our group. Some were married, or had been married, to women. Others had never had a sexual or romantic relationship with anyone of either gender. Their failure to mature as a sexual person seemed to have stunted their develoment in other ways - they were able to pose as "adult" in a job or career but their social behaviour was annoyingly childish and their receational interests were fixated on childhood hobbies. 30-year-old salesmen whose homes were filled with model trains and stacks of pornographic magazines. For many of these men, their only sexual interactions with another human being were of the demeaning, anonymous, public washroom variety. They seemed just as neurotic and screwed-up as the drug-addicted male prostitutes.

There were very few "normal", emotionally healthy, people involved in this organization at that time. I was there, in part, because a psychologist that I was paying to "make me straight" insisted that I check it out. He wasn't a bad person, this psychologist, and must have known that my quest to become a "normal", heterosexually oriented person would end in failure. I was the one insisting that he could somehow "cure" me, demanding that he try, unconcerned that I was squandering an inheritance on a fraudulent psychological theory. My involvement with the group didn't reassure me that it was "ok to be gay", as this psychologist had probably hoped it would. For the most part, the other men seemed as damaged and broken as I felt that I was.It was years later that I came to see how heroic each person in that group really was, (even the ones that weirded me right out), that they had all been victimized and damaged in various ways by homophic repression but were nonetheless striving to build a community capable of providing spaces of genuine safety within which the next generation of gay youths could interact and grow in a natural, healthy manner.

Several of the elders in my Gay community, guys in their sixties or older, with whom I have discussed this issue over the years, related their initial experiences in boarding schools they had attended. Their descriptions of a culture of sexual exploitation, protected by informal 'traditions' handed down from one generation to another by the boy residents themselves, seems to supportwhat Johnathan Gathorne-Hardy revealed in "The Public School Phenomenon".

Way back in the early history of English boarding schools, hundreds of years ago, boys aged 8 to 18 were all crammed together in squalid dormitories within these ancient buildings. Violence was commonplace, even rampant. Beatings and other physical bullying between boys was an everday occurence. Children sometimes died from this. Teaching staff beat boys with wooden whips or paddles, sometimes out of desperate efforts to maintain order, sometimes perhaps because they were sexual sadists. Older boys were recruited to help run the place and keep order, especially where the staff were to lazy, indifferent or drunken to bother doing it themselves. Teaching staff sexually abused older boys who in turn exploited their power and authority to administer whippings to extort sexual favors from younger boys. Sexual exploitation was a matter-of-fact occurence in some schools over some periods of their history.

The curriculum of these schools, which predate the explosion in natural sciences during the late 1700's and 1800's, consisted primarily of "the classics". Boys learned greek and latin and studied texts written by ancient greek and roman scholars. Among these texts were some which detailed ancient greek concepts of homosexual mentoring between men and adolescent boys, termed "pederasty". The boys in these schools were exposed to the idea that noblemen sometimes take young boys "under their wing", look after their needs, train them to take a place of responsibility in the community and facilitate their advancement up the corridors of wealth & power - but that these relationships are also specifically sexual and romantic. It is not difficult to find, in descriptions of boarding school culture from various periods, direct imitation of these ideas within the boy-run culture of the schools. Older boys had power, authority and greater "wealth" than younger boys. If you were going to survive the chaos and deprivation of boarding school life, having an older "mentor" and "protector" looking out for you must have seemed an ideal solution. If that older boy turned you into his "lover" and used you sexually, you could rationalize this betrayal by assuring yourself that this was actually an ancient and beneficient tradition. This relationship wasn't shameful or demeaning, it was "noble" and even "enlightened"! Older boys involved in exploiting younger ones could employ the same rationalizations - I'm not a rapist, I'm just following this ancient and noble tradition.

And so it went, for hundreds of years.

It is therefore not surprising that, when psychology was in its infancy and "homosexual behaviour" was first studied in the context of a pathology rather than a criminal act of sin, Gay men of the time who had the self-awareness necessary to understanding that they were "a different kind of person" from the heterosexual majority exported the rationalizations they had internalized in their boarding school days into their theories about what was "wrong" with them, of why they were the person that they were. The earliest manifestations of organizations composed of self-aware homosexual men, such as the Uranian poets, perceived themselves to be "pederasts" - "boy-lovers", because they had incorporated that romanticized interpretation of their own childhood exploitation, while it was happening to them. Their only other models of what it meant to be "homosexual" were; a sinner, a criminal or a lunatic. No doubt, some may have been pedophiles, but others were likely to have been Gay men who had only one positive interpretation of their experiences available to them - pederasty - the romanticized attraction of older males for younger ones.

This romanticization of the experience of being sexually exploited by an older male as an "initiation" into a homsexual way of life continued to be passed down and can still be found in the tragic determination of some Gay community elders that "This is who we are. This is natural, for us".

Fortunately, the rise of day schools and decline of boarding school culture, the development of Gay youth groups and safe spaces for them to interact within, and especially the advent of the internet, has forever debunked these rationalizations. Left to themselves, Gay youth naturally seek out partners within their own peer groups (surprise, surprise!). In a social climate that is more accepting of homosexuality being normal and natural for some people, participation in other forms of neurotic and unhealthy behaviour also naturally decline. There is no need to debase yourself in public washrooms, for example, and most Gay youth today express the same kind of revulsion over such behaviour that an emotionally healthy heterosexual person might express.

Social acceptance of homosexuality as normative for some persons, and the removal of social obstacles to Gay men living normal, healthy lives as full participants in our shared community, is the key to eliminating unhealthy, neurotic behaviours including romanticization of the sexual exploitation of minor persons by adults.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Perhaps the biggest impediment to positive, social change taking place is the pure ignorance which abounds concerning right, center, and left. Sometimes it comes down to semantics and the inability of masses of people to take note of subtlety and nuance. This is how an opportunist like Arianna Huffington easily snookered the public to buy into her 180 degree shift from right winger to lefty. Huffington Post is raking it in. It really shouldn't be. The pages take forever and a day to load. The stories tend to be superficial. There is too much tabloid blather to take it seriously. Sure it has a liberal slant. Liberalism, however, does not equate with social justice. This same process of co-opting the lefty label explains how someone right of center as Obama ignorantly ended up being labelled by too many as being a socialist. Perhaps it would be best to call Obama a liberal.

Liberalism has little to do with leftist idealism. Liberals have a general faith in the system. What they desire are reforms for that which is bad, or in other words, tinkering or tweaking. Thus, liberals would be against chain gangs. They would favor sliding scales for taxes. They would encourage job growth for all yet not necessarily good jobs at good wages for all. As they do have a fundamental faith in the sytem, they wouldn't be averse to a war economy. All they would need to abide to that is to be fed propaganda about how great America is, how it has the best values, has the most progressive governmental model, etc..

A pure lefty or leftier than thou like myself gets annoyed at being lumped in with fake lefties such as Obama or Arianna Huffington. Take a quick looksie at Markos Moulitsas of The Daily Kos. Bill O'Reilly and many others successfully anointed him the King of the blogospheric left. However, Moulitsas comes from the wrong side of El Salvadoran history. He used to pimp for Republicans. Like Arianna Huffington, he saw how the political tides were turning against Republicans in regards to public opinion. They conveniently "switched" sides to the left. However, in 2006 Moulitsas claimed that the CIA is a liberal institution he'd have no trouble working for. True lefties would never support the CIA.

The real left is for peace. It is for equality from top to bottom. That means with schools, wages, health care, housing, and of course an end to the war industry. Fake lefties claim Richard Nixon was the last liberal President. Fake lefties support the CIA. Fake lefties glorify criminals like Huey Long. Fake lefties support lower taxes for the rich and blog self-absorbed essays about themselves being clinically depressed. All those are real examples I've seen in the leftosphere. That is only the tip of the iceberg.

James Dean was a Fake

I'll get right to the point. James Dean is the most overrated actor of all time. He wasn't that great. He was a character actor, one-dimensional. He played the introspective, brooding rebel very well. He was good not fabulous, imho.

He also was into copying what worked for others, specifically Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. I've seen more references to his admiration of Brando than Clift, but I think Dean was all about aping Montgomery. Check him out, and one will see how he tried to tilt his back like him. One will see how Dean attempted to express inner turmoil remarkably similar to Montgomery Clift. Ok, maybe he was more into Brando and just looked more like Clift. I concede that much. Nonetheless, for those who are aware of Dennis Leary stealing Bill Hicks' schtick, that's what I'm talking about.

Another fake actor was Gary Cooper. Marlene Dietrich was correct in saying he was neither intelligent nor cultured. Basically you can see in these few examples of Dean, Cooper, Moulitsas, and Huffington how the culture of personality works in America. A famous adage is don't confuse luck for skill. Another should be don't confuse internet, business models for the work of pure leftists. Yet another should be don't confuse good looks for acting talent.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Hal Turner was a paid FBI informant. He posed as a white supremacist in order to draw out the crazies. His third trial is set to begin in less than a week. This is why the FBI has decided to embarrass itself by threatening legal action against Wikipedia for hosting a high resolution image of its seal.

If you go to the Wikipedia entry, you can click on the above, and a new page will open with a big clear image. It's called an svg format. I'm too much of a wimp to post it here, although I believe this FBI move is a total bluff.

Here's a comment from the peanut gallery to a Vanity Fairarticle that came out yesterday. Expect to see this type of generic comment wherever this story is published. That's called astroturf. The person posting is probably an FBI agent.

At first glance it looks like the FBI fell off its rocker, but there's a point to their complaints that I haven't seen anyone mention yet. Wikipedia allows you to download a full resolution SVG-format version of almost any logo that appears on their site, and the FBI logo is no exception. SVG is as high-resolution as you can get and can be printed at any possible size with no pixelation. No other online encyclopedia or news media I know of allows for the download of infinite-resolution originals, and it's disingenuous for Wikipedia to compare themselves to Encyclopedia Britannica in this fashion. The FBI must be concerned about people downloading the SVG file and printing up impostor ID cards or badges with it. Now, this isn't to say that the way Wikipedia does things is wrong. They're a community-run encyclopedia, and giving potential editors access to original files, in a flexible, open-source format like SVG, is the right thing to do. But I don't know if it's inline with the law in this case; placing the logo in an article is clearly fair use while allowing access to the original SVG file is a tougher call.

The problem with this explanation is according to archive.org, this same image has been on Wikipedia since at least February 16th, 2008.

On the blog BoingBoing, Rob Beschizza writes that this is a no-win situation for the FBI.

"The part that's hard to understand is why the FBI would seek to abuse the law in such petulant fashion," he writes, "knowing that it will be subject to public ridicule for its actions."

The answer is the FBI is trying to clog up the search engines with insignificant fluff while simultaneously tossing their close association with Hal Turner down a memory hole.

People are very naive if they think Turner has been the only dumbass on the internet working for the FBI and other so-called anti-terror groups. I think Mike Rivero of WRH.com works for one of those. He used to have a McDonnell Douglas email address. He claims to be an anti-New World Order truthseeker. Yet he used to work for the largest military contractor in the world. Does that add up? His buddy Tinoire the communist claimed years ago that she used to spy on the Ruskies for military intelligence. She admitted that once years ago while trying to enamour herself with Ronald Reagan admirers. Michael Rivero has been at the forefront of the Joos Own the World conspiracy theory. Hal Turner wasn't a big fan of the Joooos either. Hmmm.

Internet cointelpro, at least with the emergence of Sean Hannity's buddy Hal Turner, has been established as fact. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. This is why I believe the FBI has timed this recent stink up over the image of their seal being on Wikipedia to coincide with the continuing saga of Hal Turner's legal battles. This is what is referred to as a limited hangout. If the FBI was really this upset over the seal being shown in vivid colours, why did they wait around two and a half years to whine about it?